This is one of three photos I have of her with me:

Which means, that exactly 10 years ago today at that time, I walked into Mrs. Duffy’s Spanish class. I was a freshman and had just come back from lunch. Someone walked into the room as the rest of the class filed in and handed her a note. It was pink, which meant I was going home. I still remember the look on Mrs. Duffy’s face when she saw the note, which read, “Justin Harter to office, ready to leave.” She didn’t have to say anything. That’s when I knew my mom had finally lost her two year battle with a brain tumor.

Mom only ever wanted to do one thing, which was to see me graduate from high school. She was three years too short.

I remember riding home from school with an aunt of mine. I was the last person to make it home. My grandmother, who was staying with mom, was obviously the first to know. She said mom “took a deep breath, exhaled, sighed, and was gone.” By the time I got home, Dad was standing near her, crying. My other aunts, uncles and cousins were there. Everyone looked at me as I walked into the living room from the back door via our kitchen.

I was mortified. Mom was lying there, in a hospital bed that had been setup in the living room (because the bed was so large). Her arms were in no particular order or fashion, her hair was unkempt, her body turning blue and bruised. I looked around the room and everyone was just staring. Mom would have been furious at people seeing her in that condition. I turned to my aunt and said, “Go get her a pillow.” I turned to Dad and said, “Dad, go call Ben.” Ben was the funeral director in town. I straightened her arms and neck. I pulled the blanket up just over her chest.

A few moments later, one of mom’s hospice nurses arrived to check on her at her regular time. She came in, said her condolences to everyone, and called another nurse to help them gather the medical supplies. I would later be the one that would have to witness them flushing the narcotics.

When Ben arrived with the hearse, he came in dressed in a red flannel coat and jeans. I was irritated that he hadn’t bothered to put on a suit. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I was out cutting wood when you called.” He said to my Dad. “No, no.” Dad replied.

Everyone left the room and stood in the back of the hallway, leaving me, Dad and Ben to lift mom onto the gurney to take her out to the hearse. I turned to my right and saw my grandmother crying in the dark hallway, her sister hugging her.

We put mom on the gurney, Ben wrapped her in a bag, and wheeled her out to the driveway and placed her in the back of the hearse. Just then, my bus drove by. The afternoon went by so fast. The driver, Betty Starr, stopped in the middle of the road with her lights on, opened the door, got off the bus and came up to me and Dad. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” She turned, got back on the bus and drove on to finish the last few stops on her afternoon route.

Ben left and drove her to the funeral home, in preparation for the funeral the next day, which was a Saturday. I walked back inside the house and waited until everyone else left. About an hour after everyone left, around 6 p.m., J.D. Martin, my 8th grade math teacher from a year prior knocked on the door. The faculty and staff at Salem Middle School had pitched in and donated money, about $700 worth, to me. He was the one to deliver it.

I went back into the high school to see my teachers in the classes I missed and get my homework that Friday afternoon.

We had the funeral the next day, everyone asking, “Are you ok?” and saying, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I kept thinking, “I wish people would stop asking me that.” and “I don’t know why people say they’re sorry about a loss. She’s not lost. She’s right there and in a minute, she won’t be anywhere.”

I went up to mom, just after Dad and before my grandmother, as the procession started. Claude Combs was waiting outside to lead the funeral procession in his police cruiser. My grandmother turned to me and said softly, without looking up at me and keeping her gaze on her daughter, “You should touch her, say goodbye, Justin.”

“Amazing Grace” was playing in the background. “Mom never would have liked any of this crap.” I said to myself. “If mom had her way, we’d all be listening to Lou Begga’s “Mambo Number 5″ right now.”

I touched her hand and said my goodbyes. I didn’t cry that day.

I almost didn’t recognize her. I hadn’t seen her with her hair cut, wearing glasses or in nice clothes in over a year. Vivian Wilson, who cut mom’s hair since she was a girl, was the only non-family member we invited to the funeral, as she was the one to cut mom’s hair. She did the best she could. It had thinned quite a bit, and the scars from the brain surgeries meant her hair was growing in odd new angles.

We buried her in a beautiful solid oak casket, draped and surrounded in red roses (her favorite). She was wearing her favorite pair of blue jeans, her favorite Winnie The Pooh sweater she hadn’t worn in years and her watch, wedding rings and glasses.

The ride from the funeral home to Salem to the cemetery in Pekin was the longest ride of my life. Dad driving his blue truck, I sitting in the middle and my grandmother on the right. We followed directly behind the hearse, which followed directly behind Claude’s car.

It was cold and snowing that Saturday, the day of the funeral. Just as it was cold and snowing the day mom was diagnosed almost two years to the day. She was diagnosed on January 16, 2000. She died, January 18, 2002.

At the cemetery, a cheap looking green drape was placed over the hole and another drape over the pile of dirt that would soon entomb her. The Pastor, Paul Martin, said a few words there, too. He was the Pastor at the church most of my family went to. We did not go to church.

It ended with everyone getting up and walking to their cars. I sat in that crappy wooden chair, directly in front of mom, as everyone filed by me. Eventually, after most everyone else left, I stood up and said to the now-closed casket, “I love you, mom.” I turned and walked away. It was the most unceremonious ending to the worst two years of my life — and hers.

I went back to school on Monday. That morning, as I got on the bus, one of our neighbors and a friend of mine said, “Mom and dad were sad they couldn’t go to the funeral.” “We had a private funeral.” I said. “They wanted to say goodbye, too.” She said. “Yeah, well, I think I knew my own mother well enough to know that she damn well wouldn’t have wanted anyone there but immediate family.” I replied. In my head I thought, “I’m sorry that you and your family couldn’t go gawk at my dead mother. Perhaps when you have to bury your mother you’ll think differently.”

The heads of every counselor in the office damn near exploded when I walked back into Salem High. Evidently, I should have been sitting at home, staring at a wall, I guess.

That was, and remains, the longest two years of my life. Since then, everyone has chided me for living such a dull life, for seemingly being bitter and angry with most everything. Perhaps it’s because while you were 13 and 14 and 15 years old, you were playing video games and spending time with your friends. I was struggling with my sexuality and holding a bucket under my mom’s mouth so she could have something to vomit into.

It changes a person.

1. Learn iPhone programming. I didn’t make this one. I started, but realized once again that I’m not a programmer and I hate hard programming.
2. Cook more meals from scratch. Done! Drank nary a soda, no fast food, didn’t purchase any inorganic frozen food and went vegetarian late this year.
3. Start writing a book. Done! Wrote two, actually. Sold a handful on Amazon, but was read by 44,000 visitors last year on another blog of mine.
4. Increase revenue this year by $10,000 over 2010. Almost.
5. Really build a name for myself among the web community in Indiana. Put together re:build with Tony. I think that helped.
6. Find a good money manager and start investing. Done! Started investing with Jim Fleming up in Fishers.
7. Learn to shoot. Sorta. I have a gun, and took it to a range once, but I haven’t taken formal lessons.
8. Go to a beach. Didn’t do it. I’ve never been to a beach on a warm summer day.
9. Be more efficient and effective with every hour of the day. I feel like I’ve made good progress here, too.
10. My “personal goal” failed.

So what about 2012?

1. Bike to Salem. Ought to take me about 8 hours to make the 100 mile (one way) trip some summer day. It’ll put me in the Centennial club, too.
2. Read at least two books a month. I read a lot more last year, but not as much as I’d like.
3. Go to a beach.
4. Use an iPod Touch as my only phone and save on those data charges and minute costs.
5. Start some new recurring event for Indy.
6. Payoff all debts but the house. (I’m already kinda close.)
7. Write more human interest stories for thecorresponder.com
8. Make 40% of my income from non-web design work.
9. Consistently keep my living expenses under $1,200 a month. (I currently average about $1,700.)
10. Keep deadbeat client losses to $2,000 or less. (I lost $8,000 last year from crap clients who didn’t pay.)

I’ve been there, too, and I’ve gone pretty far in my frugal ways over the years. If you haven’t already noticed, I really hate spending money.

It’s obvious to me through all this that there is a strong difference between having a high standard of living and having a high quality of life, and very few people ever think about how each fits into their life and whether they’re achieving it or not.

Ideally, we’d all have both, but very few of us do, or at least not the extent we think we deserve.

For most Americans, having a high standard of living means you have good food and water available to you and at your disposal. It means you have a spacious and furnished house in the “good part” of town with cable TV and high speed Internet. It means that when you want or need something, you go get in your car in the garage and go out and buy it and you don’t just look at the lowest priced item. This usually means you buy a nice car, “nice” meaning “late model year”. You probably have entertainment at your disposal, like movies, books and TV shows. There’s gray area here for sure; things like yachts and butlers may factor in at the high end, but I’m talking about the average here. And we know what that means: your car doesn’t make funny noises all the time or have big rust spots, you don’t eat Ramen noodles or boxed dinners, etc.

Having a high standard of living usually comes attached with some strings, though. For most people, this means you pay for things on credit, you have a car loan, you might have a mortgage, etc. In other words, you have lots of stuff and very little of it is actually yours. You’re only ever one medical problem away from losing it all.

On the flip side, there’s having a high quality of life. This is the emotional touchy-feely stuff that actually matters, but no one seems to have a handle on. It means you feel loved, you’re able to go to bed at night feeling like you accomplished something and you can wake up knowing what you need to do and you do it. It means enjoying your work, it means not feeling tired or grouchy or sloth-like all the time for no good reason. It means you’re in good health mentally, physically and financially. It means when a bill comes, you pay it and move on like it was just part of the day. It means when the water heater explodes, you can get it replaced and not feel anxiety. It means you have hobbies you enjoy and you take pride in what you do. It means you feel content and in control.

They’re rarely any strings attached to having a high quality of life. For the most part, with exception of companionship and love, all of that is very much in a person’s control. You can look for hobbies, you can change jobs, you can get your health in order assuming you’re not battling a cancer, etc.

What’s overlooked is that you can’t have a high quality of life until you get your standard of living under control first.

Most people go through life and say to themselves, “Once I have X, I will be ok.” No, no you will not. It’s the new American Rat Race. You won’t win. The only way to win is to not play that game. How many people go to work and do a job they hate, all so they can afford the car and the stuff they say they need and want? How much sense does it make to drive to work to pay for a car, for instance, just so you can have a car to get to work? Do people realize what this means? “I have to have a nice car so I can get to work to earn the money to pay for the car I use to get to work.” Or, “I have to go to work to make money to pay for the hobbies I like, but never have time for because I’m always at work and too tired to do anything when I get home.”

For a long time I thought I had to have a new car, the best clothes, all the latest gadgets. I don’t anymore and I’m better off for it. I think I’ve hit a level of maturity, that at the risk of sounding like a pompous ass, that most people much older than me have not.

If I could go back in time to talk to my 15 year old self with what I know now, I’d tell me:

• Don’t ever worry about your credit score, because it’s just a number assigned by banks to help them make money off you.
• Don’t ever spend a dime on school you can’t pay out of pocket unless you’re going into a highly specialized field, like law or medicine.
• Don’t ever take out student loans; the payoff isn’t always that great and isn’t guaranteed.
• Academic inflation will keep happening, whether you have a degree or not. For most subjects, learn to teach yourself and then do good work that gets noticed.
• Don’t ever buy a new car; they depreciate too quickly and you lose too much money.
• Don’t ever buy a car that costs more than $10,000 — and pay for at least half of it in cash at the time you buy it.
• If you can, don’t even buy a car. For most college students, urban dwellers and single people, you probably don’t need one anyway.
• Make time for exercise, and find a sport or activity you love, because it’ll make you feel a lot better about yourself.
• Don’t ever eat processed food; have you ever seen someone eating a Big Mac that said, “I’m really glad I ate that.”? You’ll feel and be better off if you eat well.
• Always do just the things you’re comfortable with. I know people say you should “break out of your shell”, but you don’t have to try everything to know whether you’ll like it or not. I’ve never been hit by a train, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it if I were.
• Be very careful about who you lose your virginity to; you’ll only ever lose it once and you’ll remember that moment forever.
• If you think you can’t handle a credit card, don’t get a credit card.
• Never take a job just because it’s a job. No one ever had a good time working at a fast food joint. If you’re young and don’t have anything to lose anyway, share space with friends and do what your heart really wants to do. Think and figure out a way to make a living out of that.
• Don’t feel guilty about pushing people out of your life; sometimes it’s for the best.
• Stop being so naive and dumb; read the news and read as many books as you can. It’s the only way to develop a sharp mind, and you don’t have to get a degree in everything just to learn about something.
• Writing is a more important skill than math, so devote your efforts accordingly. Sorry math people, but most people just plain write and communicate more than they do general math.
• Don’t be swayed by marketing and what other people do “just because”. Remove yourself from a situation and make a decision based on what’s best for you in the long run.
• Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you have to get something pierced, tattooed or dyed. Ask that 70 year old guy with an ugly ink blot on his arm what he thinks of that 50 year old tattoo today.

When you start doing what actually makes sense, and realizing that sometimes it’s okay to work harder or devote time to one thing and not another, you can actually achieve a high quality of life without having a necessarily high standard of living. Luckily for me, I’ve done most of the things I mentioned above, either by sheer will or just plain dumb luck.

Today I sold my Toyota Rav 4. The last of a long line of Toyotas that I’ve owned, starting with my 1995 Toyota Corolla that I got for $5,000 when I was 15 years old and on my learner’s permit.

Over the last several months I’ve been playing with the idea of not having a car. I’d have to go out and start it up just to make sure the battery wasn’t drained. At times, I’d only really drive it once or twice a month, and usually that was just to get something taken care of for the car.

I no longer own a car and don’t intend on buying another. For now, I’m relying on my trusty Jamis bicycle and my Kymco motorbike. I’ll rent a car for really long trips. My new mantra for life is, “Never trust a man on four wheels.”

I thought it’d be interesting to try and figure up how much money I’ve spent on cars over the years. Here’s the best I can remember, as conservatively as possible:

1995 Toyota Corolla – $5,000 purchase price + $1,400 for insurance annually for 4 years + $650 for a new axle + gas and oil. I don’t remember how much I spent on gas or oil changes, but if you take the average price of wear and tear on a car at that time of .39 cents a mile x 12,000 miles a year, I spent about $4,680 a year on oil and gas + taxes of $150 a year.

= $30,120 over the four years I owned that car.

 

2006 Volkswagen Beatle – $6,000 purchase price + $600 for a new battery, radiator, turn signal, wipers and tires + .40/mile for 6 months I owned it (6,000 miles) + $650 for insurance.

= $9,650 over the six months I owned that piece of crap car.

 

2008 Toyota Yaris – $15,500 purchase price + $1,300 annually for insurance x 2 years + $212 taxes annually x 2 years + .49/mile for 36,000 miles (what it had when I sold it).

= $36,164 over the two years I owned that car.

 

2003 Toyota Rav 4 – 10,800 purchase price + $590 for insurance over 6 months + $180 in taxes + .49 mile for the 7,000 miles I drove it over 6 months.

= $15,000 over just 6 months.

Now, if you take away the sell price of each of these ($1,700 for the Corolla, $4,500 for the Beatle, $12,000 for the Yaris and $7,000 for the Rav), I’ve spent at least $65,734 for car stuff over 10 years.

I’ve tried to balance getting a good car for a good price at the demand I had for driving at the time. The Corolla was my first car, the Beatle was my second but it had too many maintenance problems. The Yaris was when I was living in the suburbs and commuting downtown for an hour one way every day. The Rav was my middle-ground after the Yaris when I started working from home.

This doesn’t factor in little things, like the floor mats I replaced in all of the cars, car washes, parking fees and other little piddly things that get in the way. I spent $250 on the Rav right after I bought it to get the window tint replaced and fixed. But at the very least, $66,000 in car-related expenses. Would you like to have $66,000, because I know I would.

That’s why this ends today. I sold my Rav, paid off the difference of about $4,000 and I no longer have a car payment. I wanted to unload it fast because in the next three months I would have had to pay $550 for insurance, $150 for taxes and registration renewal and $750 for car payments, plus it was due for an oil change and it would likely need new tires and brakes. Or about $2,100. In just three months, not counting gas, which costs the average American about $6,000 a year.

I just got back from a quick trip to the bank, on my bicycle in the slushy snow, and it didn’t cost me anything and was just as quick as a car (in fact, I followed a car from the bank to my neighborhood just as quickly as they could drive). The bike was $550 when I bought it. At that rate, I could buy about 119 bicycles for the price of all the car expenses I’ve had over the years. My motorbike, which I bought for just under $4,000 costs about $5 to fill up with gas, the insurance rates are less than half what I paid for the car and I can park just about anywhere I want and goes just as comfortably fast as a car.

Now I get to save, and save, and save…

For years, the can’s looked like this:

Perfect. Big, easy to open, keeps stuff fresh and you can shove your entire face into the can. Now, because they’re thoughtless assholes, they’ve changed their package design. Probably in the name of “corporate rebranding” or “enhanced product placement” or some other bullshit. This is what the new package looks like:

Yeah, that sorry piece of crap. That’s me trying to shove my mitt down in there. What’s the first thing you wanna do when you pop off the lid? You wanna stick your grubby hands down into it and pull out a big handful of fried onions to eventually shove into your maw.

Instead, with this new god awful container, you can’t get more than four fingers down in there. If you expect to be able to move your fingers, you can stick in three and under no circumstance can you get your thumb down in there, too. Which means you can’t get any of them out of the container unless you stand on one leg, say a prayer, sacrifice a goat and pretend to tickle the bottom of this stupid container like some three-fingered sloth.

Terrible. Just terrible.

I’m switching to the store brand. I’ll never buy another can of French’s Fried Onions for as long as that can sticks around.

That’s my house, with me in it, and the rest of the world is just sitting outside making me do things I should have never reasonably needed to do.

This weekend I had four kids trying to ring my doorbell and run away — except they’re all too fat to move with any speed or grace, so they just sorta fumbled around. After their second attempt to get near my property, I walked outside and yelled at the top of my lungs, “This stops now or I’m calling the cops and chasing you down.”

I came inside and said to myself, “I hate this house. I want out of here.” I can’t deal with people near my stuff. I can’t handle people even looking at my things with malicious intent. Everywhere I go, I think, “I hope no one’s around my house.” Or, “I hope my bike is there when I come back.” I live in constant fear that other people are going to ruin everything I hold dear — probably because other people have a fantastic record of ruining everything I hold dear.

I walked out to the garage so I could get on my bicycle, and I saw my Rav 4 sitting there. I said to myself, “I hate having a car. I want it gone.”

After I came back from my ride, I stepped into my house and said to myself, “I don’t even need half of this stuff. I don’t use it. Why do I need a bookcase when I refuse to buy paper books?”

And then it hit me, the realization I had been attempting to make for a year or more: that so little actually matters. Personally, I don’t know what really matters in my world, because I don’t share much with other people and not a lot of people come around. For me, I guess it’s about two things:

1. I don’t ever want to have to ask, “Do I have enough money in the bank?” I should be able to live comfortably on about $30,000 a year.
2. I don’t ever want to use things that offend my sensibilities.

Call it the Apple-ification of my lifestyle, I guess. But I’ve been doing it subconsciously for years by never buying music from anyone that doesn’t consistently produce phenomenal music, by not buying hardware that isn’t the best on the consumer market, by never eating food that isn’t from natural ingredients.

I’m probably never going to be wealthy with a bunch of assets, and that doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is having to figure out how to pay for things I actually need, like food, shelter, clothing, etc. I want to be able to spend my money on things that matter, like supporting book authors, supporting local businesses, buying good food, having good stuff that I actually use everyday — like a really great tea maker or knife set.

Heck, sometimes I find myself not even wanting to do that. My desire to simplification extends all the way to not wanting to eat food. I was at India Garden Saturday for lunch, like I always do, and I said to myself, “I don’t want to pay for this. I wish I didn’t have to eat sometimes.” If I could have a cheap pill that delivered all my sustenance and left me feeling “not hungry”, that’d be great.

Which confuses me sometimes. Am I striving for simplicity by trying to unload my car and hopefully in the not-too-distant future the house and the half of my clothes I don’t wear and the knick knacks that I have to have to fill the space in the house I don’t like so it doesn’t look like I’m broke because I want to life a simpler life. Or is it because I’m cheap and incredibly frugal?

I suspect a bit of both. The house is fine, the car is fine, but that’s just it: they’re just “fine” to me.

At this point, after having achieved what most people achieve when they’re in their 30′s, I’m ready to go the other way. Ideally, I’d live somewhere mild year-round so I could bike absolutely everywhere. I’d live in a very small house or one-bedroom apartment away from kids and anyone who might potential pop out a kid. (Kids are fine for the continuation of the species, I just don’t care to be around them much. Or at all.). I’d live somewhere void of young couples (because, like kids, it’s just a constant reminder to me of something I will never be able to do or be granted permission to achieve). I’d live somewhere quiet, but where I could get to a store or someplace that offered needed supplies and entertainment that I enjoyed (like a library) within a few miles.

Of course, I can’t ever have that.

Because, by definition, the things I want and need are found only in cities. Typically in very dense cities. But I don’t want to live in a city because I don’t want to live that close to other people. And when I lived in an apartment, whenever I was gone I’d constantly think, “I hope some other person doesn’t burn the building down.” I actually feared for the safety of my pets in my old apartment because I was afraid someone would ignite a grease fire or throw a cigarette somewhere and it’d kill them and I’d come home to a smoldering pile of ash. Even now, when I leave the house, I’m afraid someone’s going to do something to my house. It’s why ADT, while not necessarily efficient, is worth $40 a month to me — peace of mind that if something does happen, I have a fighting chance to know about it quickly. So after all that, that means I’d have to live in the country, which I don’t want because I couldn’t have high speed Internet access or quick commuting to a library or grocery delivery.

So I guess what I need is something like this, just in a city:

Life is hard.

(Yes, yes, first world problems.)

Facebook is, by and large, an entertainment platform. Instead of watching TV or reading a book, some people cut into that time with Facebook. So much so the phrase “I have to check Facebook” has entered everyone’s vernacular. But why? Why on earth do you need to check Facebook? I also need to check my bank account from time to time, but I don’t do it twenty times a day. “But Justin, your bank account doesn’t change as fast as Facebook!” Maybe, but it sure doesn’t feel that way sometimes.

Facebook brought most of us into the social networking realm. A lot of us had MySpace pages, but I think most of us gawk at Facebook more — and that’s strictly because Facebook brought good design to social networking. Remember when you had to sit through a MySpace page with a green background, yellow text, two videos playing simultaneously and some shitty pop song you never heard of playing in the background? That offended my sensibilities, so I blocked it out.

Now, Facebook’s content is offending my sensibilities. I don’t block hardly anyone, but I unsubscribe or hide a lot of people. Play Facebook games? You’re gone. Post song lyrics all the time? You’re gone. Post sappy poems and bullshit “feelings”? You’re gone. Post vague nonsense like “That was fun!” or “Can’t wait until it happens!”? You’re gone.

You have to agree with one sentiment: none of that crap matters. Why does anyone want to see that? I certainly don’t.

Then there’s the other side of the coin, when people post things of some level of substance, but it’s completely and factually wrong. Particularly when someone posts crap they heard on FOX or MSNBC. This Occupy Wall Street stuff is overrunning my stream. The other day someone posted a photo of a woman complaining the bank is making her pay $300,000+ on a house she bought even though it’s only worth $91,000 now. Really? Maybe it’s because she bought a fucking house for $300,000 and the bank loaned her that money? Signatures and contracts were traded. Deals were made. You were there! But I digress.

But why anyone would want to consume this stuff at all hours of the day is beyond me. It’s all just stuff and people I’d mostly rather forget. I have just under 400 friends on Facebook and now that I’ve hidden so many people, I see, maybe, 70 or 80 of them. And a tier of 20 or 30 generally dominate the whole place.

“But Justin, why don’t you just close your account?” I’d kinda like to, but feel I need to keep it for some reasons. It’s good for keeping my name in front of clients and potential clients, and I get a lot of traffic to sites through Facebook. That pains me to say it, because it suddenly makes me feel like some crummy marketer.

I’ve hooked my Twitter account back into Facebook so I can just tweet and get it cross-posted to Facebook. I did that once before but disabled it because I thought it redundant for people who followed me in both places. But now I’ve reached a tipping point where the duplicate followers are in the minority. I have a highly curated list of about 100 Twitter followers who say things that are actually intelligent. They don’t necessarily follow me back, but Facebook missed the boat on being able to read things from people who haven’t “friended” you. They just now introduced the whole “Subscribe” gamut.

For me, Twitter shows me things that are likely to be true, useful, relatable to me. Not just how many imaginary beans you you pretended to faux-grown in your make believe farm or pictures of your kid. (I *really* hate that  – how would you like it if I posted photos of my cat all the time?)

Plus there’s that whole slew of privacy issues Facebook keeps bumbling over.

Aside from me commenting in responses to my cross-Twitter-posts on Facebook, don’t expect me to hang around here much. Or, just follow me over on Twitter.

This week has continued winter’s long slow ascent into our part of the hemisphere here in Indiana. Temperatures have been chilly, but not uncomfortable, in the upper 20s to mid 30s.

Monday, I needed to go downtown to a speaking engagement. This meant I needed to be dressed nicely. I had intended to ride my bike downtown, and it was dark and raining, but I didn’t for two reasons — I actually drove. One, I would have ordinarily taken the motorbike, but since I’m still not allowed to ride at night until I get my full endorsement (and after the obligatory waiting period), I couldn’t. Also, I had taken the Rav out that afternoon to get it appraised at a few places and ended up not having enough time to get from where I was, to home, then to downtown. So I just drove straight downtown. But I was prepared to ride the bike and have spare clothes handy.

On Tuesday, I rode to Lowe’s to pickup some lightbulbs. They didn’t have what I needed, so I left empty handed and wasted my time. It was, however, chilly enough that my hands were cold. The rest of me was fine, but my hands were cold so I need better gloves. I kinda already expected that — they’re $6 things from the Gap after all.

Today, Wednesday, I recognize I still need lightbulbs, and may just order them online at this point since I don’t know where else to go for the bulbs I need. I don’t want to go traversing around the city from hardware store to hardware store. I also need to visit the bank to cash a check, go to the library to pick up a book and swing by somewhere to look for gloves and rain/snow shoes.

It occurs to me now that, ordinarily, I would have hopped in the car and went. Went to Lowe’s yesterday, go again today. Go to the bank today, go again tomorrow because I know another check is on the way. Go to the library today, go again tomorrow, because I know another hold request is on the way and will probably arrive tomorrow.

So, instead, I’m exercising some prudent patience and waiting. I’ll cash both checks tomorrow, pick up both books tomorrow and visit Lowe’s again for bulbs. If they don’t have them in yet, I’ll order online. Then I’ll go right next door to check out some cheap snow shoes and gloves at Wal-Mart.

They’re several things at work here, all good, I think:

1. I’m saving fumes. By not driving 3 miles to Lowe’s today, another 3 to the library and 1.5 to the bank and instead saving them for tomorrow, I’m not wasting (albeit a little) gas or polluting (what little I do with the motorbike). I’m cutting my mileage by half. My carbon footprint on the bicycle is already very, very low, but now it’s even lower.
2. I’m saving time. By just waiting and exercising a little patience (that I absolutely would not have thought about before), I’m able to stay here at home and keep on working.
3. I’m saving some money. By not adding any wear to either bike (and I’d take the motorbike because it’s windy — I hate pedaling in the wind), I’m saving a tiny bit of money.
4. I feel a lot calmer. Forcing myself into not rushing around to be “busy” all the time is very satisfying.

“Well, Justin, you could have always done that and saved yourself the time.” Yes, I probably could have, but I didn’t nor would I have even thought about it. You probably don’t think about that much either unless you actively have something else that needs your attention. We think we need something, we hop in the car and go and our time can be much better used elsewhere or consolidated.

At this point, my driving looks like this assuming I know I have to go somewhere:

• Is it under 10 miles one-way and is the wind calm? Yes? Then ride the bicycle.
  • If it’s windy or longer than 10 miles one-way, I take the motorbike.
• Is it raining? Yes? Then take the motorbike. It keeps my drier.
• Is it dark or will it be dark soon? Yes? Then take the bicycle if it’s under 6 or 7 miles one way and turn on the lights.
  • If it’s dark and further away or windy or raining, then I’ll take the Rav. Until the BMV allows me to take my skills test, I can’t legally drive the motorbike at night.

The experiment continues…

I talked to you before about my experiment with not driving. Or un-driving, perhaps. I want to reiterate my personal expenses for driving. I drive a 2003 Toyota Rav 4. It’s all wheel drive, gets about 28 miles per gallon and weighs about two tons. My trip to the post office requires me to lug two tons of steel along with me. I live in Indianapolis, Indiana, where mass transit is virtually non-existent; our bus system is ranked 99th out of 100 of all the metro-area mass transit systems in the country. Driving’s also expensive, per month:

Car payment: $256 (over five years)

Car insurance: $105.33

Gas: $60 a month (two fill-ups, 400 miles)

TOTAL: $421.33 per month to run the car. That doesn’t include parking fees, titles and registration, wheel taxes, more gas for longer trips, oil changes and any other minor or major maintenance the car requires — like car washes, wiper fluid or new tires or brake pads. At best, with no maintenance problems or oil changes or hiccups, I’m spending $5,000 a year on a car. Most Americans spend about a fifth of their income on their cars. People in places without good mass transit, like central Indiana, spend about a third of their income on cars.

The bigger issue, in my mind, is the car’s depreciation. I’m going to spend $10,000 over 5 years to end up with a car that’s worth, maybe, $4,000. That’s the dumbest financial move anyone could make, and we seem to do it over and over again.

So I experimented with not driving for a few weeks, and I only drove a couple of times. Both of those times was to check out a motorbike in another county. It was too far to ride my bicycle comfortably and it was, after all, only to go find an option for replacing the car. I consider it a success.

And now I’ve made a purchase. For $4,000 I bought a new motorbike. It gets 80 MPG (conservatively, in the city, I’m going to say 60 MPG), which is more than twice as good as the Rav, maybe even almost three times as good. It holds just 2.7 gallons of gas.

It rides smooth, works great and is crazy fast and cheap. Now my expenses per month look like this:

Payment: $167 (over 36 months)

Insurance: $56

Gas: $12 (for about 400 miles)

TOTAL: $235 a month. After the 36 months, it’ll be about $67 a month on the high point and the value of the bike stays steadier than a car.

This does require some lifestyle changes to be sure. Here are some things I regularly do, or am prepared to do in the near future:

• Drive to work.
  In the spring, I’ll likely be teaching two days a week at a high school across town from me. It’s too far to bike comfortably, especially in the wind (which is the worst thing to cycle in). So, the motorbike can get me there in 20 minutes as it travels just as fast as a car (up to 188 MPH in my case). I have a $50 outfit of rain gear I wear on top of my “work” clothes that I can put on and take off quickly, stash under the seat in the storage compartment and go on my way.
• Deliver packages.
  Sometimes I have to take packages to clients or elsewhere. Sometimes I need to pick up something rather large from the hardware store or elsewhere. In this case, I can do a few things. I can try to mount it to the rear rack of my bike with ties, I can get them delivered and pay the nominal shipping charge (for a few bucks, that’s much, much cheaper than the car), get the package picked up by the Postal Service or FedEx or UPS, or just rent a car some weekend and get it then. Rental cars on weekends sometimes run as low as $10 a day.
• Go to meetings.
  Like traveling to other jobs, just throw on my rain gear and go. The full-face helmet keeps my head dry and warm, too. Vents on the outside can be opened to give me a lot of fresh air in the spring or summer to keep me cool. Or, just put on a coat or bring a change of clothes to quickly layer into or out of. I can dress for the occasion, and make it as easy or difficult to change into or out of as I need, like if I’ve got access to a bathroom to change or not.
• Get groceries.
  I recognize for some people they still go to the store. If you live in Indy, for heaven’s sake, use PeaPod.com already.
• Get supplies.
  Amazon Prime is amazing.

The extra fees I pay for delivery charges or shipping is minuscule compared to the cost of owning the car. And since I work from home, this makes even more sense for me.

There are some other lifestyle choices that have pros and cons of not owning a car:

• You can’t just get up and go wherever whenever.
  The epitome of American excess: I WANT IT NOW. You’re sitting on the couch, you want ice cream, you go to the car, hop in and go. Well, I don’t really do that so much anymore. But, I save more money because I’m not as interested in bicycling 3 miles to get some ice cream or some other equally needless thing.
• It requires a little more planning.
  I spend a few extra minutes each day thinking about my travel plans and getting things done all at once. I used to go Lowe’s for things two or three times a day. Now I take more time to sit and think about what I need before I go so I can get it all at once and be done. I also think about the order of things so I make my commutes shorter. All stuff people should probably already do anyway, but don’t, because we’re spoiled car addicts.
• You have to let go of some of your ego.
  If you’re one of those people that thinks your car defines you, you live a sad, pitiful existence. Your car doesn’t define you, it just tells people how much debt you’re willing to go into. It’s like a stupidity tax. Our culture, driven by ads from car companies, tells people that bicyclists and people on motorbikes are dumb or weird. I think you’re the stupid one, as I stream by you on the shoulder or leave you in my dust on my motorbike that goes 0-40 in about 2 seconds. Plus, nothing garners attention like something sexy and red.
• You have to recognize the hidden costs.
  The costs you spend on depreciation,  fees and taxes at the BMV and so on add up. A lot. I’ve done some research and read some books, and everything I seem to read comes back to edmunds.com and their “True Cost to Own” calculator, which often suggests taking the purchase price of your car and doubling it. That’s how much it truly costs to own and operate the car over a period of a few years.
• You have to do something smart with the savings.
  I’m keeping my Rav for a little while longer, just in case, but I want to sell it (anyone interested?). I’ll get out from under that loan, pay off the bike in about 6-7 months (if I pay the same I am for the car and just divert it to the bike). Then I’ll be debt free except for the house. With the savings, I can store it away, put it in my retirement, invest it, or put it towards the house. Over a period of just 10 years, the savings in cash will be at the very least $50,000. If I invested it or put it in my retirement plan, that’d make me a millionaire by the time I’m ready to retire. Just from not owning a car.

Some common questions I know you’re thinking:

“What do you do when it gets cold?”
I put on a coat.

“What do you do when it gets hot?”
I wear less clothing.

“What do you do when it rains?”
I put on something waterproof and get over it like a man. Dressed properly, and I’ve tried this, I don’t get wet, I don’t get cold and I don’t have a hard time seeing because the water just rolls off the side of my helmet.

“What do you do when you need to go someplace really far away?”
Rent a car. It’ll cost about $60 for the day or two I need it, if it’s during the week. Enterprise will even pick me up and drop me off, too. It’s cheaper on the weekends.

“What do you do if an emergency happens?”
I’d probably call 911, like in any other emergency.

“What happens if it’s snowing or icy?”
I probably won’t go out unless I have to, just like I would with the car. If I have to, then I’ll do what any rational person would do: put on the right gear, take my time, exercise caution and get on with it.

“What if you have to take a passenger?”
They can hop on the back of the motorbike. Or, they’ll have to figure something else out. Maybe we can bike together — I have two bicycles now.

“What if you have to go somewhere at night?”
I’ll turn on my lights.

“That seems awfully uncomfortable. I think I like my car.”
Fine, drive your car. Doesn’t bother me. My bicycle burns fat and saves me a ton of money. My motorbike saves me a ton of money, too. Your car makes you fat and burns money. I feel better, look better, live better and save money to put toward things I actually really care about — like technology equipment, books, food and better living stuff, like buying a better set of cookware or a better coffee maker. All without going into debt.

I’ve taken my motorbike out for a test drive in cool air (50 ish degrees), cold air (28 ish degrees), windy weather, rainy weather and sunny weather. It’s not a problem. When it’s 2 degrees and snowing, that might be a problem, but I’ll get over it. I’m sure I can manage. And if the weather is just so shitty that I absolutely can’t get out and I absolutely have to go somewhere, I’ll spend the time taking the bus or call a cab. It’s miserable the most in Indiana in January and February. Eight weeks, and if I have to go somewhere and it’s the actively sleeting or snowing, then I’ll have to put up with that for a few trips that, out of the entire year, are piddly in comparison.

There is no inclement weather, just inclement dress. If you live in a city, you almost certainly do not need a car. Unless you’ve got a bunch of kids, you work in construction, live on a farm or have to do sales calls all day long from one spot to another, or have health issues that your doctor is concerned about, maybe car-free living isn’t possible. But for the vast majority of people, it most certainly is.

I’ve been using the Jawbone Up for a little over a week now. The Up is a rubber band you wear around your wrist. It records your steps, eating habits and sleep patterns in conjunction with the iPhone-only App. It costs $99 and may be worth about $79 of it.

The Band

The band is made of rubber, has a removable cap for the headphone jack that you plug into your iPhone to sync data and is surprisingly comfortable. You’ll probably lose the cap if you’re a loser incapable of holding on to a small piece of plastic, but I’m not worried about that. Because I have the sense to sit down at a table when I’m working with small things.

It’s waterproof, which means you can shower with it…and count your steps? I never wear mine in the shower. That just seems silly. And they recommend you not swim with it. So, feel free to walk out in the rain and use the band to cover your head.

It is comfy, though. I don’t notice it when I’m typing or sleeping. It’s easy to put into sleep, workout or default mode by hitting the little silver button on the other end of the band. And, the package allows you to get the right fit — small, medium or large. I’m a medium but I thought I’d be small. Small would be for kids, I think.

The App

You use the app to take a photo of your meal. Two hours later, it’ll send a Push Notification reminding you that you ate two hours ago. It’ll ask you to give you feedback about how you feel: energized, normal, tired, hungry, etc. After a while, you’re supposed to use that to help you figure out how you’ll feel next time you eat a similar meal. Of course, if you don’t already know that eating a bowl of ravioli is going to make you feel tired, there’s little this App’s going to do for you. This portion is lame and I never remember to take a picture of my food. I usually end up taking a picture of an empty plate or bowl instead. And you can’t really use it for snacks. If you eat a banana, how are you supposed to feel two hours later? “Freaking phenomenal” isn’t likely.

The app also shows you graphs and charts about your activity and sleep patterns. More on that in a bit.

Lastly, the app is also how you enroll in challenges. Challenges are Up’s way of being “social”. Since there’s like, ten people using challenges, I’m number one in all the challenges I’ve enrolled in.

The Reason I Bought It

Up tracks your sleep habits and vibrates on your wrist to wake you up in the morning. It also vibrates during the day to remind you to get up for a break on an interval you set (mine’s 90 minutes). But the sleep tracking is interesting and works pretty well. I have mine set to wake me at 8, which is really “wake me between 7:30 and 8 a.m.”. As I roll around in bed, it knows based on my unconscious movement whether I’m awake (orange bars), in light sleep (light blue bars) or deep sleep (dark blue bars).

I can’t profess to it’s complete accuracy, but in the mornings it wakes me by 8 a.m. when I’m in light sleep and it’s a much more pleasant way of waking up. For that, it was worth buying (although, I think $99 is a bit much at this point). Later, you can see a graph of your sleep, which is kinda neat. In this case, it knew I got up around 4:30 a.m. to get a glass of water:

It’s only woken me up in deep sleep once, and that was because I had been in deep sleep for the entire half hour before, so it defaulted to just being an alarm. One morning it wakes me at 7:40, another 7:50. If you’re such a baby that you think you must get every last second of sleep the world somehow owes you and the idea of waking up 15 minutes before you “have to” offends your weak little self, I guess you’re not going to get much use out of it.

You wouldn’t think a little vibration on your wrist would work, but it’s a very intense vibration. When it vibrates, you feel it, but it’s not loud or violent like a cell phone’s vibration.

Conclusion

The app is very 1.0. The band only tracks steps, so if you do a lot of cycling or other arm-stationary exercise, it’s not going to be very accurate. At least with me, when I cycle, I take my iPhone in one of my panniers and the App can use the iPhone’s GPS to track my movement. The band, however, still clocks some “steps” as I hit bumps in the road, but it’s horribly inaccurate on that since I’m not really walking. It’d be worthless on a treadmill or stationary bike.

The app needs calorie counting in an easy way to be really great. If I take a picture of a slice of pizza, I’d like to see it say, “That looks like pizza. The average slice of non-meat pizza is XX calories.” Then I could get a clearer picture of my diet and intake.

The band is comfy, has 10 hour battery life (and I believe that) and is stylish enough not to look dorky.

Overall, it’s better than nothing when it comes to metrics. The sleep cycle monitor is worth it, in my book. This would be perfect if you’re modestly fitness-inclined. I think I’m too far above that to be really impressed by it, but for $99, buy it, enjoy what does work and look forward to the free app updates in the future.